I’ve sat with hundreds of clients at many kitchen tables helping folks to navigate this exact question. For the sake of brevity – I may say kitchen remodel here, but you can insert bath, laundry, home office, library, wellness room, outdoor kitchen, addition…
Every day General Contractors, Design/Build Remodelers and Designers receive calls from potential clients asking them to come to the house to ‘give them a quote’ for their remodel. The idea is that a pro should be able to come, look at their space and be able to tell them what a remodel will cost.
WAIT STOP! Let me save you some heartache, frustration and expense right here. If you meet a Contractor who is willing to give you a price for your remodel after one visit with no design, no drawings and no material or product selections – RUN!!! The end of that trail is lose/lose for everyone. Here is how that typically plays out – the Contractor is excited for the work and so they do their best to give you a price and tell you they can start next week. Whatever price they pulled out of the air is based, at best, on the Contractor’s perception of what you wanted. Then demo begins and either 1) you’re hit with multiple change orders and delays as the Contractor figures out on-the-fly what you actually envisioned, and/or 2) the Contractor learns what you really expected and realizes they way under bid your project or even worse that they don’t have the skill or experience to do it – and that’s when Contractors disappear and stop returning phone calls.
A professional remodeler knows that drawings, selections, product specifications and a detailed scope of work are critical and are HOW we ensure that all parties understand the scope of the project, the level of quality expected and exactly what it will cost. So how to you get from deciding you want to remodel to a place where you’re ready to sign on the dotted line and get started? Let’s talk about a few terms that will make this process a little clearer..
BUDGET – this is a number YOU decide (to a point). The Budget number is what you decide you are willing to invest into a project. This number is not the same for everyone as everyone’s priorities are different. For some the goal is to do the least amount possible to maintain their home’s value for resale, for others this is the dream kitchen they’ve been planning for years. When I say you decide ‘to a point’ what I mean is I can decide all day long that I want to tear out my 150sf kitchen and completely re-do it with all new cabinetry, countertops and appliances for $20k and it’s just not going to happen. A trusted pro who has done projects in your area that are of similar size and quality to what you want can help guide you to what your budget needs to be or how you can adjust your expectations. Important point here – do not take budget advice from a pro who has does not have a proven track record of successfully completing projects of the level you want, in your area and recently.
The other thing to consider with budget, is I may only want to spend a certain amount on my remodel based on my situation and priorities, however, if I’m living in a neighborhood where the homes are above a certain value, buyers expect to see a certain level of quality. If I remodel below that level, I can severely hurt my homes resale value. Your home’s location and value will dictate the minimum budget you should be considering. Many realtor and home value sites will say that if you’re planning to stay in your home for at least 5 years, you can spend 20% of your home’s value on a kitchen remodel*. I can tell you from experience, if you are drooling over those amazing magazine and Instagram kitchens, you are going to want to up that to at least 30%**. [*this is assuming the current condition of your kitchen may be hurting your home’s value. **if your home’s value is over $2m it’s unlikely you will spend over 30%, and in many cases much less]
One last note about Budget. It’s very common for clients to be hesitant to give a Contractor or Designer the actual budget. I guess they feel if they say what they’re actually willing to spend that the cost of the project will get unnecessarily escalated. The truth of the matter is that things cost what they cost. Subcontractors give bids, fabricators give quotes, showrooms write up orders, and most of the time the finished project that you’re envisioning (that magazine photo you love) costs a lot more than you realize. The lower a Contractor can bring a project in for, the greater the odds of you moving forward and them getting the job. So I can tell you after 26 years in the business, I have never seen a Contractor or Designer inflate the cost of a project just because. On the contrary, many are lying awake a night trying to figure out how to get the costs down!
So – the way to get your project off to the most successful start is to find a pro that you TRUST, then have an open and frank discussion of your actual budget. Great discussion questions would be 1) realistically what are you hoping that this will cost? If you can get us what we want for this ** you’ll be our hero, and then, 2) if you get really excited about the design or some of the products, what is the MAX you’re willing to invest? This is the ‘no matter how much we love it, we’re not going beyond this’ number.
So now you’ve talked about it and as an individual or a family you’ve decided what you think your budget should be, now it’s time to call a pro.
ESTIMATE – an experienced pro who is in demand, with a proven track record of successfully completing projects of the quality you want, in your area, will be able to give you a broad high/low range of what projects similar to yours have cost. This is a true Estimate, just like you might estimate how much it might rain next week, or estimate how much sunscreen to bring to the pool It’s a really well informed guess.
Because the pro doesn’t have drawings or material selections yet, it’s possible this Estimate range (or what many of us affectionately call a Guess-ti-mate) can vary plus or minus up to 50% or more based on the final design. Some pros will do ‘allowances’ in order to put together a line item Estimate, however, allowances are only valuable if the pro has a sense of the following.. Will you do a $3,000 KitchenAid fridge or a $13,000 Sub-Zero fridge? Will you do $12,000 quartz countertops or an $36,000 exotic stone? Will you have a complex low-voltage lighting design throughout or will your lighting be some 6″ cans and a single pendant over the island? Will you go with stock off the shelf cabinets $8,000 or custom factory finished $50,000? The pro can’t know any of this until there is a design and selections, so the estimate is really simply to help you establish if you are in the right ‘ballpark’ budget-wise for what you want to accomplish? If the answer is yes; knowing that all of these decisions need to be made before you can get to a price – what is the next step??
At this point, the pro who understands the value of their time, skill and experience, will ask for some type of commitment from you before they spend the days and weeks that it will take to get to a finished DESIGN that can be priced. A pro that has spare time to do free design and quotes should be a red flag! Working with an independent Contractor you may add a Kitchen & Bath Designer (like those at kbhtexas.com ) to your team to do those drawings and help with those selections. A Design/Build Remodeler may have a Designer on staff. Either way, this stage is usually initiated by some type of Retainer. A Retainer of 10% of the estimated size of the project is not uncommon; usually no less than $1,500 even for the smallest projects.
DESIGN – In the case of a third-party Designer, many work either by the hour (like the Designers at kbhtexas.com ) and you’re invoiced at regular intervals as the design develops, or in the case of Design/Build their time is built into the overall cost of the project.. Often in a Design/Build firm, the Designer is paid by commission based on the final project sale price. While it’s built in and you never see a bill for design, you ultimately pay about the same as an hourly or fee based Designer. Either way the Designer teams up with the Contractor (and in some cases the Architect) to use their experience to assess the existing conditions, the budget, the architectural limitations and design challenges, product availability, product appropriateness and your personal style to create a design that meets the ‘Program’ for the project and hopefully thrills you!. This is an iterative process, often meeting multiple times to make selections, make adjustments and tweak the design to get it exactly right. For some projects this is accomplished in two or three meetings, in others it can take up to a year. It might be tempting to think that a Design/Build Designer is motivated to increase the cost of the project because they are paid by commission, but the reality is a professional Designer knows they win when you win, and a project you love at a cost you can live with means they get the joy and satisfaction of a job well done AND more referrals from a happy client. NOTE: we live for those referrals!!
BE AWARE: some Design/Build firms have Selection Centers and your choices are limited to what they carry. Most independent Designers can work with any showroom at many different price points, so your options may be broader. Some clients may like the idea of having limited choices, but others may want to have access to all of the showrooms – be sure to check with your pro before committing.
I’m listing the QUOTE phase next, however, often this is happening simultaneously alongside the design process. Most often design choices may need to be revisited as quotes come in and different elements of the design are re-prioritized. This is a part of that iterative process that eventually gets us to Quotes or Contract.
QUOTES (CONTRACTS) – at this point of the process, nothing you review at the Contract signing should come as a surprise. By this time you are intimately acquainted with the design, the drawings, all of the materials and the product selections. You know what the project is going to cost, what the scope of the work will be, how change orders will be handled if they are necessary, and roughly how long the project will take. A pro will have discussed with you logistics such as, will you live in the house during the remodel? Do you need a temporary kitchen? What bathroom will you use? Are there any HOA restrictions? Where can a dumpster be parked? Where will kids and pets be during construction and what hours of work are acceptable to you? How will questions or concerns be communicated and addressed during construction? The Contract signing should just be a confirmation of everything you’ve discussed and agreed to up to this point. The goal for a remodeler who calls themselves a professional should be that you completely understand and agree to the project forwards and back before a single hammer is swung. The Contract should protect you and the Contractor in the case of any misunderstandings. Different remodelers have varying payment plans, but a 50% deposit at Contract signing is common, with payments happening at pre-established milestones as work progresses. It is not unusual for a final payment of 10% to be withheld until the end of the project, or what the industry calls ‘substantial completion’. Your Designer is heavily invested in the success of your project and will typically check in regularly. [Watch for a future BLOG post about the different ways to include your hourly designer during the construction phase! Design consultation versus Project Management].
I hope this was helpful! At Kitchen, Bath and Home our team knows that remodeling can be intimidating and that’s why our company mission is to use our years of hands-on experience to support Clients, Contractors, Architects and Designers with a process that is SIMPLE | PEACEFUL | TRUTHFUL. We come alongside clients and pros to make the experience as enjoyable and successful as possible. Hear from some happy clients and trade partners at kbhtexas.com
Watch for more blog posts intended to put you in control of your next (gorgeous) remodel project!
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